VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
While covering the 2009 Lok Sabha
elections in Uttar Pradesh, a senior Congress leader told me that the party had
a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), an ace up its sleeve. Unable to understand the
clue despite covering the party for a while, I asked him what it was. He smiled
mysteriously at my ignorance and simply said, Rahul Gandhi.
Probed further, he said USP was
the young age of Rahul, the youngest leader in the two parties—Congress and BJP—and
youth of the country had simply lapped up the idea of Rahul. He claimed, though
without any supporting argument or data, that all those between the age of 18
and 39 (Rahul’s age then) voted for Congress. I obviously didn’t agree.
But at 39, Rahul indeed was the
youngest leader amongst BJP, Congress and even the regional parties. He was
then largely an untested commodity from whom there were a lot of political
expectations. The results were soon out and the Congress got over 200 seats and
formed the Government with its allies. It managed an impressive 22 seats in
Uttar Pradesh and the success both at the national level and in UP was given by
the family loyalists to Rahul. The leader of UP had the last laugh, he called
me up and reminded me about the conversation during campaign period in which he
had told me that the party has a USP, an ace up its sleeve. Since then, I asked
a lot of leaders with whom I interacted as to why Rahul didn’t become the Prime
Minister in 2009 as the party was in an extremely comfortable zone. Moreover,
when you give credit to a leader for victory in a democracy, obviously he
should be the leader of the party and run the government. I never got a logical
answer and it still remains a mystery to me why Manmohan Singh got a second
tenure and Rahul did not get his first as Prime Minister. Or for that matter,
why didn’t the young Rahul want to become the prime minister then. After the
Assembly elections in UP in 2012, I called the same leader and asked why didn’t
the Rahul magic work in UP despite campaigning so hard and handpicking most of
the candidates.
“This happens in politics. Lot
of factors play out,” was his reply. I called
him again last week to ask if the USP of Congress for the big battle of
2014 remains Rahul, the leader from UP, a die-hard Congress and Gandhi family
supporter, was not sure this time round and fumbled for appropriate words and
analysis. Rahul will be 44 soon and he no longer remains the USP of Congress
nor is the ace on which the party can bet for the big battle ahead.
What is ironical is that those
betting on Rahul in 2009, and here I am not talking about hardcore Congress
loyalists, have shifted their loyalties lock stock and barrel towards Arvind
Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Even though Kejriwal might be learning
about governance in Delhi through
the trial and error method, a lot of Congress supporters have overnight
switched their loyalties to AAP and think he could be a decent alternative to
Manmohan Singh. This group has loyalities intact towards Rahul but as Kejriwal
is the flavor of the season and they see a dramatic shift in policy and
politics if Naredra Modi becomes the Prime Minister, they think Kejriwal is a
safe bet as of now.
No wonder supporters of Modi are
devising strategies day in and day out to counter Kejriwal. They know that
Rahul and his party are down and out. Even if the Congress Vice President is
made the Prime Ministerial candidate in the January 17 AICC meet, the fortunes
are not likely to change. Modi supporters are worried that the anti Congress
vote would go to AAP affecting their chances in the urban constituencies of the
country and also the youth.
Kejriwal would be 46 this year
and is 2 years senior to Rahul. The same veteran Congress leader from UP who
talked about Rahul being the USP of the party in 2009 now finds nothing wrong
in the Delhi chief minister. His
loyalties to Rahul might not have lessened but he builds an argument in favour
of Kejriwal and how a post poll alliance of AAP, Congress, some regional parties
and possibly left could keep the “communal forces” at bay.
He is already looking not at 2014
but possibly another election by the end of 2015 or 2016 in which people would be fed up
by such a rag tag arrangement and vote overwhelmingly for the Congress and
Rahul would be the Prime Minister. So there you got it. The Congress supporters
have got it right that the party would not come back to power in 2014. In such a situation, the next
best alternative is to support someone who has any semblance of possibility to
counter the Modi juggernaut.
At this moment, they see a
plausible alternative in Kejriwal as he is an untested commodity, out to prove
a lot of things and also politically gullible and almost similar in ideology to
the NGO style functioning of Rahul and his mother Sonia Gandhi through
non-constitutional institutions like the National Advisory Council.
Well, if wishes were horses,
donkeys would fly for sure. The more AAP expands and increases its membership
drive, the possibility of filtering gets all the more remote and distant. I
have seen how Congress discards and those on the fringes are hopping on the AAP
bandwagon in the hope that they would get a place under the sun. Ask them about
the ideology of AAP and all they have is a cap on their head and slogan against
corruption. Fine, but you are treating politics as a 20-20 cricket match and
want instant result. That is not the way politics works out.
Talking to Congress leaders and
their sympathy for AAP, it is getting clear that it is fast becoming a “safety
valve” for the Congress. When the Indian National Congress was established in
1885, it was considered a “safety valve” for the British regime so that
anything against the imperial regime could be discussed in a safe forum in
which
British officials or anglicized
Indians discussed issues concerning India .
If AAP indeed is not a “safety valve” of the Congress in 2014, it will have to
shed this image fast. If not, it will be reduced to the B team of Congress and
in that situation, Kejriwal could well be the chief ministerial candidate of
Congress for Delhi assembly elections as
and when the present assembly is dissolved and fresh elections take place. (January 13, 2014)
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